Concur Alex. Not saying they're worthless - agreed that studying can really help to make sure you've covered all the bases. But I can also get that with my favorite book or Pluralsight course. I once took a MS programming exam without studying for it a few years ago to see what it was like. I *couldn't believe* all the silly IDE-related questions that I could easily answer with Visual Studio open. A lot of it is a memory quiz. I didn't even consider going back to retake the test. That's what intellisense is for - to help guide you to a given available method or property. But when they give you a test on something that is provided for free that I don't need to know, it's stupid IMO. And since when do I have to take a test while I'm at work? Without a book or the internet. What???!! Ha - I just can't see my boss coming up to me and asking me to create something for him and, oh, I have to use Notepad and no internet access. And he'll be timing me to make sure I get it done in 2.5 hours. Yeah, right.

Again, not trying to slam the cert test in and of itself, but it's the learning process that pays the dividends and how you then use/apply that knowledge. All I'm saying. It all has to carry over and be useful to you for it to have any value for you or your employer.

I interviewed for a job once where the manager gave me an assignment/task to accomplish in an hour and a half or so. He said you can use any source you want, and provided a computer with internet access, Visual Studio and - eek! - Microsoft Access for the data layer. I had trouble finding a working web.config-based connection string for Access and asked him who uses Access for an application anyway. Oh, and I was 30+ minutes late for that interview because I was working on a calendar solution to send to another manager where I had interviewed a few days prior. And I even got up in the middle of the interview to take a phone call from the other manager where I was offered the job. Hilarious. I didn't get an offer for the second job. I wonder why? :w00t: